Yeast as a tool to study new therapeutic molecules

Yeast mutant sensitive or resistant to oxidative stress and apoptosis can represent a very powerful tool for finding new therapeutic drugs and their mechanism of action. In previous studies we demonstrated that acetyl-L-carnitine promotes longevity in yeast by inhibiting the activation of caspase, the production of ROS and the mitochondrial thread-grain transition1. We have recently shown that some Arylthioindoles (ATIs), potent tubulin assembly inhibitors, were active on six cancer cell lines and able to inhibit yeast cell growth mainly through YCA1 and NUC1 which code for a meta-caspase and the homolog of the mammalian EndoG in yeast, respectively2 3. To focus on the physiological pathways in which these and other chemotherapeutic agents could be involved, we studied the effect of these drugs on the growth of yeast mutants with defined genetic defects in known pathways. 1. Palermo et al., Aging Cell. 2010 Aug;9(4):570-9. 2. La Regina et al., J Med Chem. 2009 Dec 10;52(23):7512-27 3. Palermo et al., Cell Cycle. 2011 Sep 15;10(18):3208-9.